CR: Some airlines allegedly reduce fares...

[RachitS713]

Hello Ron,

I read your post above and you mentioned that choice D is irrelevant.
However, I am not able to rule that one out - Can you please shed more light?

My reasoning: Once the airline successfully implements this method, the other airlines (competitors) decide to stop serving those routes and shift resources to other routes. Thus, jacking up the prices to recoup losses would not provide competitors with better opportunity (because their resources are already moved).

Please suggest where my reasoning is wrong.
Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

there's no reason at all to think that the transfer of resources would be irreversible.

besides—even if you think the changes ARE irreversible, this still won't help you, since in that case you'd see both changes mentioned in that answer choice (the downsizing and the transfer) as irreversible.

[jabgt]

I had exact same idea as that of "RachitS713" when I chose D. After reading explanations here, I realize that if I interpret Choice D in this way, then Choice D weakens what states in stimulus. My understanding is that any answer choice weakening/supporting/paraphrasing premises in stimulus is wrong -- we should just accept premises in stimulus as facts, including dealing with weaken/strengthen/evaluate problems, which allow us bring extra information from answer choices. Otherwise there is no way to test the intended points -- the ability of critical reasoning, since we can always just simply say what states in premises in stimulus are not true.

I mean, as what I understand from "Thursdays with Ron", weaken/strengthen/evaluate problems are designed to test our abilities to recognize what the issue is at hand and to tell which information from answer choice affects the issue. We cannot attack one argument such as "My friend is eating more food than ever before. Therefore, he is going to gain weight" (Ron's example) simply by saying " your friend is not eating more food".

Is my above understanding correct?

[RonPurewal]

^^ choice D is not paraphrasing anything, nor is it weakening anything in the stimulus.

according to choice D, other companies might stop serving certain routes if some company goes low enough on fares... but, once that company RAISES the fare again, there is no reason why these other companies couldn't simply un-do that move, and shift their resources BACK to the route they had temporarily abandoned.
...in fact, choice D makes this even more solidly possible, because we know that those other companies are not down-sizing when they abandon those routes. in other words, choice D basically guarantees that the other companies WILL be able to reverse their action at any time -- since they still have the same total volume of operations -- and thus, if anything, choice D can be interpreted as helping the argument.

[jabgt]

^^ choice D is not paraphrasing anything, nor is it weakening anything in the stimulus.

according to choice D, other companies might stop serving certain routes if some company goes low enough on fares... but, once that company RAISES the fare again, there is no reason why these other companies couldn't simply un-do that move, and shift their resources BACK to the route they had temporarily abandoned.
...in fact, choice D makes this even more solidly possible, because we know that those other companies are not down-sizing when they abandon those routes. in other words, choice D basically guarantees that the other companies WILL be able to reverse their action at any time -- since they still have the same total volume of operations -- and thus, if anything, choice D can be interpreted as helping the argument.

Yeah, I failed to think D that way. Thank you, Ron!

( I'd wanted to thank you for each post from which I get tremendous help, but I'd end up wasting your valuable time. So I have held myself back for majority of time.)

[RonPurewal]

ah you're welcome. thanks for the kind words.

[AmanT701]

Hi Ron,

Still not confident about B.

I could not find any answer to this problem and put E, since it made little sense that increase in the number of customers can lead to improvement in profits.
However, in B, if prices are again slashed, the situation will just worsen because of further losses. I see you have tried to explain that point above but isn't that an unstated assumption that this time the fares won't be reduced below a certain level(below which the airline starts making losses).

Can you help explain the confusion?

[RonPurewal]

However, in B, if prices are again slashed, ...

the argument describes a strategy in which prices are temporarily slashed -- and then raised to HIGHER levels, in order to make up for the losses sustained during the price cuts.

there's no reason to think that another price cut would take the prices lower than the first price cuts did.

[FaisalS312]

Ron, Is that correct to say that answer choice E is a weak contender since it talks about the correlation between fares going down and "total" number of passengers increasing on that "route"; it might be the case that passengers get stimulated to travel on that route just by noticing a decline in the fares but take the airlines of competing companies on that route, and hence E fails to weaken the argument.

Answer choice B directly attacks the underlying reasoning on which the conclusion is based, and an important keyword in the premise that I encountered was "extended period", so it would be safe to assume that the airline is getting a buffer duration to sell the tickets at an increased price, pushing the profits of the airline.Even if the competitor enters market again, the airline would use the strategy again to drive the competitor out and again increase the price for a period until the competitor creates a noise.

I would request you to please validate my thought process towards this question.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

Your reasoning seems good. When answering the problems, I would encourage you to think of the kind of thing that would weaken the argument before looking at the answer choices. My thought process would go as follows: the argument is claiming that the plan won't work, that the airlines won't make profit. So, how could this plan be profitable, despite the fact that there's a risk of other airlines stepping back into the market when prices rise? What reason would there be for airlines not to step back into the market?

In the light of this, answer E doesn't address what will happen when the monopoly airline chooses to raise prices. Presumably passenger numbers will fall again. However, answer B addresses the gap in the argument (the assumption) very precisely.

[FaisalS312]

Your reasoning seems good. When answering the problems, I would encourage you to think of the kind of thing that would weaken the argument before looking at the answer choices. My thought process would go as follows: the argument is claiming that the plan won't work, that the airlines won't make profit. So, how could this plan be profitable, despite the fact that there's a risk of other airlines stepping back into the market when prices rise? What reason would there be for airlines not to step back into the market?

In the light of this, answer E doesn't address what will happen when the monopoly airline chooses to raise prices. Presumably passenger numbers will fall again. However, answer B addresses the gap in the argument (the assumption) very precisely.

Thanks a ton for the explanation and suggestion

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

You're welcome.